Family Secrets

Coming Home Pt. 1

Peter's Friday morning started too early. His alarm was too loud, his lights too bright, and his shower too hot. Sometimes this happened when Peter was overly attuned to the world around him, an unfortunate side effect of the spider powers.

Entering the kitchen, he didn't greet any of his family, just pushed his way into his dad's arm and curled into his lap. Tony's arm instinctively went around the teen.

"You're getting a little big for the lap, bud," he chuckled lightly. Pepper put her hand on Tony's shoulder and mouthed 'sensory overload'.

Natasha brought Peter some coffee and placed a hand on his arm. "Hey, Мой маленький паук, ты можешь посмотреть на меня? Сосредоточься на мне и сделай несколько вдохов." (Translation: Hey, my little spider. Can you look at me? Focus on just me and take some breaths.)

Peter looked up, wincing slightly from his arm, and looking at his Aunt. At some point, his head stopped pounding and he was able to take his head out of his father's chest.

"Спасибо," he said, taking the coffee.

The family sat for a while longer in silence, letting Peter fully recover. After a sensory overload, he was usually fine for the rest of the day, but the few minutes immediately after were sensitive and could send him spiraling again. Finally, he felt well enough to talk.

"Sorry about that," he mumbled.

"It's no problem, sport!" Steve ruffled the teen's hair. "I hear you had a pretty intense night, though."

Peter smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, it was my bad." He continued to shovel his breakfast into his mouth.

"Let me see it," Pepper said, having been left out of the conversation last night. Peter rolled up his sleeve, showing her the gauze, which was clearly soaked in anti-infection cream and blood.

Pepper peeled back the dressings, the rest of the family craning to see the damage. Bruce went to get more gauze so Peter's mom could redress the wound before school. It was more healed now than it was yesterday, but still relatively deep.

"Shhhh" Pepper hummed soothingly as she re-bandaged it, noticing Peter's wincing. When she was all done, she let Peter sit back in his chair and kissed his forehead.

"Okay! So, we've all cleared our schedules for the day, so we'll all be here for when your trip! Happy is going to drive you, and he has all the paperwork to give to the school on changing your address and guardianship and whatnot. We'll see you in an hour, k?" Pepper clapped her hands together to signal the end of the little speech. Peter smiled and gave her a hug, nuzzling into her neck. She kissed his head and Tony stood up to ruffle his hair again. Peter went and gave everyone in the room a hug before grabbing his bag and heading down the elevator.

The ride to school was tantalizingly charged. Peter felt like his whole body was shaking. They parked, and happy walked Peter up to the school so he could drop off the paperwork the school needed to recognize Peter Parker as Peter Parker-Stark.

Peter separated from Happy, making his way to Chem class. Ned was waiting for him.

"Dude," he said, pushing his way into the room. "I can't wait to go to your place with the whole class. Like, do you think we'll see your parents while we're there? Or your Aunty? Or your Uncle Bruce! Your Uncle Bruce is the coolest, oh my god, and he lets me hang out in the lab with-"

"Really, Penis," Flash interrupted Ned. "You shouldn't lie about 2 things. First the whole internship thing, now your 'uncle' works there?"

Peter had told his class a while ago that he had an internship at Stark Industries, after they had seen his ID badge in his bag once. While FRIDAY recognized Peter and typically let him in, there had been a few instances when Peter had been locked out of the family entrance and was forced to go through security at the front, a difficult task for someone without ID. After that, Tony and Pepper had a badge made up for Peter just for those kinds of situations.

Peter rolled his eyes at Flash. He'd find out the truth soon enough.

"Oi, Penis Parker, look at me. You little liar!"

Flash pushed him backwards, but Peter did nothing to stop him.

"Fucking little orphan, can't even fight back," he sneered as he threw a halfhearted punch. Peter caught the fist in his shoulder,. At least it wasn't somewhere visible, a bruise was the last thing Peter wanted to explain to family in half an hour. The teacher showed up just then, meaning Peter was saved from Flash's antics for now. They boarded the bus one at a time, and Peter's nerves were wackier now than before, if that was possible.

The drive was quick, seeing as they were now out of the rush hour traffic. They pulled up to the front to a view Peter hardly ever saw despite living in the Tower. It was a tall building, nearly a hundred stories high, and the front of the entrance was all glass and silver. Very sleek.

The class filed out of the bus and got into a line to enter the building for security. Peter didn't know what he was going to walk into when he passed through those huge doors, but he knew it would be new and exciting and 100% super.